Hosting WordPress on Windows Azure Websites

Hosting WordPress on Windows Azure could not be any easier. It’s basically done in two steps:

  1. Create a Website in the Azure portal with the WordPress app from the gallery.
  2. Go to the newly created Url and follow the WordPress installation steps.

It took me about two or three minutes. Now the question is, why would I want to host a PHP blogging engine on a Microsoft powered plattform? The answer is simple: Because I can.

Setting up a custom domain for your new website is pretty straight forward, but you need a little bit of knowledge about DNS configuration. One downside of having a custom domain for your Windows Azure website is that you have to scale it up from a free to a shared mode. Which basically means your credit card will get involved. I will have to keep an eye on the bill, but since Windows Azure is supposed to charge you only for the resources you actually use, I should be fine.

There is already a lot of good information about Windows Azure websites out there, so I did not want to make another detailed how-to article. Nevertheless, if you feel like you could use another one, drop me a note in the comments.